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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127316">Iguaza</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrymom/pseuds/sorrymom'>sorrymom</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TWICE (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, a lil homage to happy together, maybe not an appropriate bday present</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:48:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,572</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrymom/pseuds/sorrymom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's start over.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hirai Momo/Im Nayeon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Iguaza</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/enesnl/gifts">enesnl</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for tay &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the hostel kitchen, oil in the cast iron skillet shines like the black satin of a tango dancer’s dress. </p><p> </p><p>Lately, everything has reminded Momo of the tango bar. The high squeal of the bus’ brakes on the ride home was a violin. The click of her knife against the cutting board as she slices through a withering green onion is like heels on tile.</p><p> </p><p>Her brain has always been like that. Too empty. Too easily filled by whatever’s in front of her, like it’s all there is. </p><p> </p><p>She pulls a washed out milk carton full of day-old daishi from the communal fridge, pouring into the saucepan to simmer. Then the udon, boiled for just the sixty seconds Momo counts out to herself with a steady tap of her fingers on the steel sink.</p><p> </p><p>She sears the green onions in the oil because Nayeon never likes them raw. </p><p> </p><p>Momo divides the broth and the noodles between two bowls, then sprinkling in the vegetables. It’s not the same as home, but it’s close. The kind of thing she would cook for Nayeon during flu season when they both were aching, and as the steam rose to heat Momo’s cheeks Nayeon would wrap around her from behind, nestling her chin against a bare shoulder. </p><p> </p><p>But, tonight, she is waiting upstairs. Momo balances a bowl in each hand, lemons tucked in her pockets, and ascends the rickety spiral staircase up to her apartment. </p><p> </p><p>Nayeon is at the window in her white tank-top, a cigarette hanging delicately from her lips as she smiles. It’s a smile that, maybe before, would have raised the tempo of Momo’s heart to something unbearable and feverish. But now all she can think of is the twin weight in each hand, the sweat stinging the back of her neck, the sick smell of tobacco beat back by the breeze. </p><p> </p><p>“I wish you wouldn’t do that in the room,” she says, too tired to sound harsh as kicks the door closed. “It makes everything stink.” </p><p> </p><p>“You can wash it.” Nayeon lifts one of her bandaged hands to slip the cigarette out, exhaling a heavy enough pull that, for a second, her face is obscured with fog. “Or I can. When I get better.” </p><p> </p><p>Nayeon speaks in promises now. </p><p> </p><p>Or maybe she always had. </p><p> </p><p>She had promised Argentina would be better for them; easier. That they’d fix everything they’d broken in each other. That they’d go to Iguaza Falls. </p><p> </p><p>“You’d have to wash the blankets and the rug and the curtains,” Momo mutters as Nayeon twists the cigarette out on the windowsill, and then comes to sit in the ramshackle metal chair on the other side of the cramped dinner table. </p><p> </p><p>She never wanted to be this person. Not the one who scolds, who criticizes, who looks at the brightness of Nayeon’s eager smiles and thinks ‘we have made such a mess together.’ </p><p> </p><p>Momo stuffs a rough paper napkin in the collar of her shirt. She can’t stain it, can’t bother to do laundry before her next shift. </p><p> </p><p>Nayeon smacks her lips expectantly as Momo pulls her own chair across the linoleum. She pulls the lemons from her pockets, then unfolds a pocket knife to slit into the skin and squeeze the juice into each of their bowls. Then, as is the ritual, she takes the chopsticks in her own unbroken hands. She pulls the noodles up from Nayeon’s bowl, letting them drip off some of the excess broth before offering them up to the other woman who slurps enthusiastically, then hums.</p><p> </p><p>“You could cook for a living,” she says between bites. “Quit that awful job at the tango bar.” </p><p> </p><p>“It’s not awful.” Momo likes the music and the dancers and sometimes even the drunks. Besides, she cooks enough. She’d rather Nayeon have it than anyone else. </p><p> </p><p>The other woman just quirks a brow, an offer of an argument. </p><p> </p><p>Momo won’t take it tonight. </p><p> </p><p>When she’s finished feeding her, Momo leans back to her own bowl. The broth has cooled, the noodles heavy and limp. Under the table, Nayeon presses their knees together, getting closer and closer until her head rests on Momo’s shoulder. </p><p> </p><p>That’s how Nayeon is, and Momo has had years to learn it. She scattershots signals out like a shotgun, waiting for one flimsy piece of shrapnel to find it’s way through Momo’s chest. If it’s not a squabble, it’s this— whispering an almost shy, <i>thank you for the meal</i> against Momo’s neck. </p><p> </p><p>On one hand, Momo thinks bitterly, she has no choice but to feed Nayeon. No choice but to bathe her with a wet cloth, careful not to soil the bandages. No choice but to go out to the corner store, transforming beer-stained pesos into shrink-wrapped cigarette boxes. </p><p> </p><p>But she would do it for Nayeon. Again and again, renewed again with every morning she wakes up and sees Nayeon nestled on the thin mattress across from her. </p><p> </p><p>Like how the waterfall never runs dry, she thinks, looking at the tourist-shop lamp depicting the Iguaza they keep in the corner of the apartment. The electric heat spins a paper cylinder behind the stained glass, light marbling and flowing and melting in a constant circle. </p><p> </p><p>“Sleep with me tonight,” Nayeon sighs. </p><p> </p><p>“The bed is too small.” </p><p> </p><p>It’s true. It’s wide enough one person and little more. Momo usually takes the couch, knees nearly tucked to her chest beneath a second-hand quilt. </p><p> </p><p>“We can push them together.” Nayeon doesn’t have to try hard to be persuasive. One glance to her playful frown and Momo is young and willing. Like she’ll get on a plane, like she’ll come to a country where she doesn’t know much more than ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’, like she’ll take Nayeon back into her small life and give everything that’s left. </p><p> </p><p>“I need to clean this up,” she murmurs, soft, so Nayeon knows it isn’t a rejection. She rises, piling the bowls and chopsticks into the pot. </p><p> </p><p>When she comes back up, hands flushed pink from the heat of the dishwater, Nayeon is standing proudly beside the newest rearrangment of furniture. </p><p> </p><p>“I thought of another good thing,” she says as Momo puts away the dishes. “Now we have more floorspace.”</p><p> </p><p>Momo hums in acknowledgement. </p><p> </p><p>Nayeon stomps against the floor. Coffee mugs shake in the cabinet. “We could dance.” </p><p> </p><p>“I’m tired,” Momo whines, but she doesn’t mean it. They’ve been practicing on the good days. Nayeon has come to the tango bar a few times, hands haphazardly cupped around a brown bag of take-out food or smoking on the street corner when Momo takes her breaks. She’s seen, through the window, how the chests are cinched together closer than the dancers’ hips. How the eyes are almost always downcast, not demure, but like the intensity of the embrace is too feverish. How the man’s hand rests on the woman’s shoulder blade, their cheeks grazing through each slow step. </p><p> </p><p>“Maybe,” Nayeon murmurs as they press against each other, “we could be dancers.” </p><p> </p><p>Tonight, Momo will let herself believe in that for as long as Nayeon is holding her. She’ll imagine the two of them in swoop-backed dresses on the black and white tiled floor of the tango bar, patrons watching them over the glass horizons of their tipped back tankards. And after, just as drunk, they’ll stumble into a stately mansion with a queen-sized mattress and pull each other from silk dresses into silk sheets. </p><p> </p><p>Tonight, they step on each other's socks. They slur into treacherous dips, weight leading the embrace in swirls around the apartment. Their mouths pant against each other in silly effort, sour with lemon as Nayeon says, "let's start over." </p><p> </p><p>It's implicitly another promise. Because it means this is a world where they can. </p><p> </p><p>Nayeon hums a melody in three-quarter time and Momo joins her, following the wandering, unreal song. They’re a barely coordinated accordion, harmonizing incongruently, but what’s their’s fills the four walls and bursts out from the open window, into the breeze, into the night as it soothes over Buenos Aires. </p><p> </p><p>When her muscles get too heavy Nayeon lowers them into the bed. </p><p> </p><p>The Iguaza Falls lamp flickers blue in the corner. Nayeon’s breaths slow against Momo’s nape. </p><p> </p><p>There’s a legend about the Falls. Momo read it from a tourist brochure, the pages of a Spanish dictionary fluttering beneath her fingers as she traced each word. </p><p> </p><p>The story is that God wanted to marry a woman but she had a human lover. She ran from her village to the river, fleeing with the lover in a narrow canoe. </p><p> </p><p>God, in his rage, severed the river so that the two of them would eternally fall. </p><p> </p><p>Still, Momo thinks, God gave them forever to hold each other as the freshwater plunged with them down to the pit of the earth, then back again, over and over and over. </p><p> </p><p>Maybe God had given this, too; the steady, always returning nature of Nayeon’s breath at her back; the high violin pitch of her laughter; the tango itself— a song with two equal, repeating sections. First, the proud, major key. Then the relative minor haunting into the next song. And again, and again, as Momo stands at the window of the tango bar she always leaves before the last heave of the accordion, so she can imagine that they dance into the morning and then even further.  </p><p> </p><p>When sleep comes, it is fast and heavy as rushing water.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKU622phcXE">&lt;3</a>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p></blockquote></div></div>
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